Olympic marketers have scant leeway in Tibet riots

By Michele Gershberg and Paul Thomasch - Analysis

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Companies already committed to spending millions to advertise at the Beijing Olympics would find it hard to pull their ads if they felt the situation in Tibet was hurting their images.

Advertisers and their agencies say that, at this stage, they are keeping a close eye on events, but so far the potential gains from participating in what some describe as China's "coming-out party" as a world power still outweigh the disadvantages caused by the turmoil.

"Pretty much every corporation is saying: 'We're aware of it, but it's not our place to dictate policy,'" one agency executive said. "It has not yet precluded any advertisers from being there."

Media buyers working with such advertisers say they have not seen easy exit clauses built into their contracts for commercial time on the NBC network and affiliated channels, which has exclusive U.S. broadcast rights for the Games.

Full-fledged Olympic sponsors are even more tightly locked into the ceremonies as part of costly, long-term commercial deals with Games organizers.

If they concluded that political strife could damage their brands, they would likely take down their ads, but still write off the cost.

"A lot of the inventory is contracted well in advance so advertisers are bound to their commitments," said one media buyer who did not want to be identified due to sensitive client relationships. "It's not like they could make a decision to pull out. There would need to be discussions."

Broadcasters have in the past pulled ads when bad news affected a specific industry, such as taking an airline commercial off a broadcast about plane crashes. But it will be hard for any marketer to make the same argument over a standoff between Tibetan activists and China, the media buyer said.